McCain's love affair with the telecom lobby

[Sirius99]

!@#$ off! We're the Judean People's Front.

SPLITTERS!!!

[KD in CA]

Why? What is the incentive to become more informed? Why would someone that is relying on television commercials, talk radio, or cable opinion shows change their way of researching candidates? What is the new incentive, for all of a sudden getting rid of parties?

 

Because people don't rely on those things. They rely on the '-R' or '-D' that follows the candidates' name. Two thirds of the country would never consider voting for the opposite party no matter who the candidates are. That's the incentive.

[Chilly]

Because people don't rely on those things. They rely on the '-R' or '-D' that follows the candidates' name. Two thirds of the country would never consider voting for the opposite party no matter who the candidates are. That's the incentive.

 

Sure they do, they rely on those things for information about the candidates. Statistics show that most people form an opinion about a candidate based upon the media. You are right that Party ID is a good predictor, because people will generally vote for the candidate that is "less evil", which is typically the party that they agree more with, even if that contradicts their opinion of a candidate.

 

If you remove the party label, they will still use the same method to form an opinion about a candidate, and will vote based upon ideology ("I claim I'm a conservative!") or personality instead of party label.

 

I'm not sure if you have access to JSTOR, but if you do, there have been several studies done on the states that have nonpartisan elections for some offices.

 

This one by Adrian, for example, found that "Nonpartisanship encourages the avoidance of issues of policy in campaigns."

 

I will retype the relevant part here:

 

Since voting "for the man" and other frontier concepts have kept American political parties from exercising responsibility, the lack of definite platforms and the failure to carry out concrete campaign promises under nonpartisanship have not been as apparent as would otherwise be the case. The system does not make campaigning upon issues profitable, but discourages it even more than does the present party system. Seldom does a nonpartisan candidate take a firm, widely-publicized stand upon the important issues of the day, and this is especially true if he is running for a seat in a collegial body. He prefers to take no stand at all, or an ambiguous one, or to discuss irrelevancies. He would rather try to be all things to all people, depending upon a well-known political name, or upon religious, ethnic, or other extraneous associations. In fact, fence-straddling is much more tempting than under the conventional election system, since in the latter the presence of a party label suggests some sort of "position" to the electorate. And since under nonpartisanship the voter seldom can associate a candidate with a position, he comes, as a last resort in his confusion, to choose "name" candidates. This means that there is a premium upon personal publicity; that the individual with newspaper backing often has an inordinate advantage; and that the incumbent nearly always (unless he has somehow managed to develop notoriety) is in a very strong position simply because his name has appeared more or less regularly before the public during his years in office.

 

Some other things noted about nonpartisan elections relevant to our discussion here:

 

- Nonpartisanship tends to frustrate protest voting

- Nonpartisanship produces a legislative body with a relatively high percentage of experienced members, making for conservatism

- There is no collective responsibility in a nonpartisan body

 

Other studies on JSTOR find that race and class become defining issues in nonpartisan elections.

[KD in CA]

Sure they do, they rely on those things for information about the candidates. Statistics show that most people form an opinion about a candidate based upon the media. You are right that Party ID is a good predictor, because people will generally vote for the candidate that is "less evil", which is typically the party that they agree more with, even if that contradicts their opinion of a candidate.

 

If you remove the party label, they will still use the same method to form an opinion about a candidate, and will vote based upon ideology ("I claim I'm a conservative!") or personality instead of party label.

 

I'm not sure if you have access to JSTOR, but if you do, there have been several studies done on the states that have nonpartisan elections for some offices.

 

This one by Adrian, for example, found that "Nonpartisanship encourages the avoidance of issues of policy in campaigns."

 

I will retype the relevant part here:

 

 

 

Some other things noted about nonpartisan elections relevant to our discussion here:

 

- Nonpartisanship tends to frustrate protest voting

- Nonpartisanship produces a legislative body with a relatively high percentage of experienced members, making for conservatism

- There is no collective responsibility in a nonpartisan body

 

Other studies on JSTOR find that race and class become defining issues in nonpartisan elections.

 

Looks like interesting stuff, thanks. I'll have to read it in more detail, but agree that the recoginition issue would continue to be a problem (as it is now). Not having term limits for Congress is another mistake. No matter the system, it's the nature of the beast that to get elected you need to tell people pretty lies instead of the ugly truth. I wish there was a viable way to break the existing duopoly as it doesn't seem to be adding much benefit to the country.